What is meant by "Pre Production Vehicle"

Kevins89notch5.0 · Post by **Kevins89notch5.0** » Tue Jul 31, 2007 7:04 pm

Looking over the registry, the first 3 are noted as "Pre Production Vehicle" and owned by ford. Number 18 and down are noted as "Pre Production Vehicle" but are not owned by ford. 2 of them are registered with private owners. Can anyone elaborate on the "Pre Production Vehicle" term. I do see that they were made 2 months prior to the main cobra production run. Were these test cars in a way? Who were they originally sold to? Anything special about those one? Would these be more valuable?

Post by **1993cobra** » Tue Jul 31, 2007 8:19 pm

Pre production cars werent meant to be sold to the public, They were produced and pulled to be used in testing, I think the first 2 or 3 were crashed, And most of them were driven by ford engineers, managment etc.. and then were sold through the ford employee sales system , after that they could be resold to anyone.

Kevins89notch5.0 · Post by **Kevins89notch5.0** » Tue Jul 31, 2007 8:22 pm

Awesome, thanks. So would you say that one of those 18 would be worth more than #2200(just a random number) given the same condition.

Post by **BADBOY** » Tue Jul 31, 2007 8:55 pm

Its a testing thing as Kevin stated.

Kevins89notch5.0 · Post by **Kevins89notch5.0** » Tue Jul 31, 2007 9:16 pm

While my question was 93 Cobra specific, it looks like google could have answered it pretty well...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-production_car

Pre-production car
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Pre-production cars are vehicles that allow the automaker to find problems before a new model goes on sale to the public. Pre-production cars come after prototypes, or development mules which themselves are preceded by concept cars.

Pre-production cars are typically built in small quantities on a slave production line, or in some cases on the real production line alongside the current model. Typically the parts used will be off the production tooling, or at least are intended to represent the final part very closely. Sometimes the components used to make a pre-production car are a mix between the prototype models and the mass production versions to come later.

"... A pre-production car is a car is like a beta version of a software program — it's used for demonstration and evaluation purposes of an all-new vehicle...."[1]

Manufacturers sometimes use pre-production cars to provide the automotive press a chance to experience and create publicity and articles about the models that are yet to appear in dealer showrooms for public view. Some of these cars are exhibited at auto shows. They may also be destroyed during crash tests. Most of the rest are scrapped, as they may not meet automobile safety regulations or emission standards, or they may be used as the prototypes (also known as a development mule) for test work for the next model.

Post by **1993cobra** » Wed Aug 01, 2007 7:59 am

Dont really know if they would be worth more? Also some were given to magazine companys to do test drives and articles, along with car shows as stated above.

POOBLAH · Post by **POOBLAH** » Sun Sep 09, 2007 7:21 pm

Well I would imagine that the preproduction cars would be more "problem matic" given they were beta versions... Just like software im sure there were bugs to get out.

On a SIDE NOTE.... DOES ANYONE OWN ONE THAT USES THIS FORUM>?